Archive for the ‘Resources’ Category

Don’t be Data-Driven, be Problem-Driven

Recently a founder of an early stage startup asked me, “How do I convince my co-founder and team to be more data-driven?”

I think I surprised him with my answer, because I told him that the key issue wasn’t being more data-driven, it was being problem-driven. Or more specifically, problem-aligned.

Being data-driven (or at least data-informed as we say in Lean Analytics), is entirely dependent on whether you (read: startup founders) agree on the problem that you’re solving. If you can’t agree, data is meaningless.

Analytics is the measurement of movement towards business goals.

When speaking with this founder it was fairly clear to me that he and his co-founder didn’t actually agree on what they should be doing. That’s very common amongst founders, and it’s the biggest challenge you’ll face. Startups die regularly because of founder disagreement. You don’t always hear about it, but that’s what’s happening behind the scenes.

Once you’ve agreed on the key problem that you need to address (recognizing that there are always tons of issues at any given point in time, but focus is a must), the data flows naturally from there. It becomes much easier to figure out what to track when you know what problem you’re trying to solve.

If your co-founder doesn’t want to use data once you have agreement on the problem to focus on, you have another issue. In my opinion it’s one of intellectual honesty (or lack thereof). When someone doesn’t want to use data to know if they’re making progress towards business goals (read: solving problems) then they’re trying to insulate themselves from reality. That’s a dangerous place to be.

Get alignment on the key problems you need to solve before worrying about anything else. Make sure everyone at your startup is working together and feels responsible for solving the key problems you’ve agreed upon. Focusing on the data or “being data-driven” is a moot point if people aren’t working together on the right priorities.

If you would like Mojoe.net to discuss developing your logo, web site, web application, need custom programming, or IT consultant, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-859-9848 or you can email us at dwerne@mojoe.net

The Importance of Understanding Your Best Users

Every startup has a certain percentage of “good” users. I put good in double quotes because the definition of a good user will vary depending on the startup. You need to define what a “good” user is for your startup. Let’s look at an example…

For an early stage startup that’s got an MVP in the market, you’ll be looking at some form of engagement. In Lean Analytics we call this the Stickiness Stage. The amount of engagement depends on the product–for a consumer app you might be looking at daily or weekly engagement; for a B2B app you might be looking at weekly or monthly engagement. If your startup is highly seasonal (e.g. tax software, selling xmas ornaments), measuring engagement is more difficult, but that’s not the case for most of us.

The engagement that you care about is also up for discussion–are you looking at logins? Clicks? Page views? Other actions? Presumably you know for your startup and product, what “good use” means, and you should define that clearly. Logging in isn’t enough, especially if they just log out–so you’re looking for some level of deeper engagement, something that indicates the user is getting value from your product.

For our example, let’s go with the assumption that a “good” user should “engage” with your product at least once a week. You believe this is reasonable because of the type of product (it’s not a daily use app), the problem you’re solving, and the qualitative feedback you’ve collected from users (those that tell you they love it seem to use it once per week). You might also have enough data (a few months or more) that shows you that users who use your product once per week seem to stick around, which is a good thing. You’re not pulling “once per week” from your ass, there’s some fundamental / reasonable assumptions behind it.

You can now calculate what percentage of your users are “good”.

Ideally you have a threshold that you’re aiming for, what I would call a “line in the sand”. It’s difficult to find a benchmark, but pick something. I’m going to skip passed this a bit, but let’s say we’re aiming for 25% of our users to be “good”, or what we’ll now call “active users”. And right now we’re only at 15% active.

And btw, in this case, active users is your One Metric That Matters. It’s the single metric that everyone is focused on and working towards improving.

So what can you do to try and improve the % of active users?

Start by looking for commonalities amongst your active users.

What makes these people tick? What separates them from everyone else who isn’t using your product as frequently or who churns out quickly?

It’s in these commonalities that you may find the answer to what you can improve / change / focus on. For example, you might find that a lot of your active users share similar demographic information. That might indicate a shift in market focus is needed. Or maybe you find that a lot of your active users take a particular action (read: engage w/ your product) more times than non-active users. In this case, the particular action in question could be a leading indicator of becoming active. At minimum there might be a correlation there that you can test further.

If you do find a correlation (i.e. users that do something inside the app are more likely to stay active with the product), then you’ve found what you need to focus on for experimentation.

And the big question becomes: How can you get more users to take the action in question?

You can now come up with a bunch of experiments and:

see if you can get more people to take the action you want; and (more importantly),

see if that results in more active users.

If you do crack that nut you’re in a very good place. You’ll know what to focus on until you get your percentage of active users to the threshold you want. And you have a process for ongoing experimentation that keeps everyone aligned around the key problems and goals for the company.

I think a lot of startups ignore commonalities amongst their best users and as a result lose out on a lot of learning from them. You should know everything you can about your best users. Similarities amongst your best users will help you refine your target market (you can’t go after everyone!). And what makes your best users different from everyone else will help you drive more people to become good users, and help you find new users that more quickly become good.

Look for commonalities amongst those “good” users (it could be anything!)

Figure out how to get more “good” users (could include feature experiments to encourage more/different usage of your product based on what good users do, could be a shift in market / marketing strategy, etc.)

Rinse and repeat.

If you would like Mojoe.net to discuss developing your logo, web site, web application, need custom programming, or IT consultant, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-859-9848 or you can email us at dwerne@mojoe.net

China Domain Name Registration Scam, So I got an email today from a client asking if the email they received from a Chinese domain name company was legitimate or not. I went on the internet and did a little digging and I ran across this great blog post about getting emails just like this saying your domain is going to Hey! Got an Email from China Domain Name Registration Center, Asian Domain Registration Service In China, The Department Of Registration Service In China etc.?
(21/05/2013 3:58 pm)

The reason that you have landed here is surely due to an email in your inbox from an Asian named domain name registrar such as China Domain Name Registration Center, Asian Domain Registration Service In China or The Department Of Registration Service In China. In the email they probably request you to forward the email to your CEO with an urgent request to react quickly to a list of available domain names about to be registered by another company infringing your trademark rights. (This other “company” could also email you to tell that they plan to register the domains). In the following I will list the types of emails, discuss if this threat email should be taken seriously and which measures you should take. At the end we have collected a list of Chinese companies and individuals to be aware of plus examples of their emails. Please contact me if you have other examples, and do share the article so we can avoid more victims.

20.08.13: LAST NAME ADDED TO THE LIST: James Zhang, China Registry (Headquarters)

Three types of emails

There are basically three types of unsolicited emails that you can receive:

1. A third party is interested in some available domain names (typically .hk, .cn, .tw), where you have a matching trademark. In only a few days the other party will register these domains, unless you react.

2. You receive a renewal reminder for a domain name which is very similar to the one you have registered. It could be that you have CoffeeMachineCompany.cn, and they want you to renew CoffeeMachineCompany.net.cn.

3. You receive a renewal reminder for a domain name that you have registered with another registrar. This should be reported to the right authorities. We got an example here from 18th May 2013 at the bottom, so you can see how they look.

Is this a real threat, where you have to react?

Our clients here at European Domain Centre are international companies with worldwide brands to defend, and a couple of times each month they forward these emails to me with the question: Are they fake? Are these domains really going to be registered by another company inside a few days? I went back to look at emails that clients had send over the years. One client got an email from The Department of Registration Service In China on 13.02.12 with a list of 10 domains. All of these domain names are still available one year after. Another client received an email from Asian Domain Registration in China on 17.10.11 with a list of four domains. The client ended up registering one of the domain names with us and the other three have been left unregistered for the last two years. The question in the title must be answered with a NO. This is a Chinese domain scam, where a third party company is used without its consent to pressure you to purchase some domain names via this Chinese registry. The domains will not be registered if you ignore them.
If you start a conversation with them, they will in each email tell you how urgent it is to register your domains. I have even been informed that they can call you at a certain point to put on more pressure. If you ask them for a reference or any information about the third party company interested in registering your domain names, they will not pass on any information, as it is “confidential”.

Are they real domain registrars?

Some yes, and others no. Going through the list of contacts I can see that many of the contacts only recently registered the domain name for their email, and no website exists. It is very likely that they will take your money and run. Some of the scammers regularly change their email address. E.g. Michael Hong has used eight different email addresses over the last months. They do this to avoid being blocked by spam filters.

What should you do when you receive an email from China Domain Name Registration Center or other similar named registrar?

As confirmed above your domain names will not be registered by another company, however I would still recommend you to do a couple of actions. First and foremost, there are companies taking the bait. Over the next two years hundreds of new gTLDs will be launched, so there will be even more confusion. If you have received an email like this, then please forward it to me at christopher@europeandomaincentre.com, and I will list it in the article to warn about these emails. I have already enclosed a sample of these below. You can also do like this guy and start a conversation with the scammer!

Secondly, it is surely not possible to stop these scam emails. You can search in Google where to report scams to your local authorities. Especially for fake renewal emails I would definetely take action, as this type of emails is far more scrupulous and easy to fall for, and they should be stopped immediately before others become victims. You can also share this article in your network so we can spread the message and ensure that the database is updated.

Thirdly, if you do plan to register domain names in those countries, then I would recommend that you do not wait. Contact your current domain registrar (Not China Domain Name Registration Center!). If you decide to use us at European Domain Centre, you will only have to deal with one contact for all your domain names, even if you have registered domains in countries all over the world.

Conclusion

When you receive an email from China Domain Name Registration Center or a similar company about domains which are about to be registered, then it is most likely a false warning, and you should ignore it. You can send it to me, as we can then update the article to warn about new emails. Secondly, if you do think that some of these domain names could come in handy in the near future, then do go ahead and register them. I recommend as well that you read the article The Top 5 Domain Name Scams in 2012.

WordPress has a lot of great and functional plug-ins. Here is a list of the 30 most popular WordPress plug-ins. Not only do we tell you who/what the plugins are but give you links to the plug-ins, so if you have a WordPress installation you can install these plug-ins yourself. If you need help feel free to contact us at info@mojoe.net

I have used and do use the majority of every single one of these WordPress plug-ins for WordPress installation that we create for our customers. There are some very useful and helpful plug-ins that make your WordPress web site preform better and more efficiently to plug-ins that will better optimize and submit your site to search engines.

3.) Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog or Word Press web site. With such sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure fo your site and retrieve in more efficiently.

4.) Contact Form 7 – Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contacts flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

5.) NextGEN Gallery – It provides a powerful engine for uploading and managing galleries of images, with the ability to batch upload, import meta data, add/delete/re-arrange/sort images, edit thumbnails, group galleries into albums, and much more.

11.) Fast Secure Contact Form – This plugin allows a webmaster to easily create and add contact forms to WordPress. The contact form will let the user send emails to a site’s admin, and also send a meeting request to talk over the phone or video. And administration panel is present, where the webmaster can create and preview unlimited forms.

14.) Share Buttons by Lockerz / AddtoAny – The WordPress plugin to help share, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Google, Digg, Delicious, and well over 100 more sharing and social bookmarking sites.

16.) Google Analyticator – Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytic’s logging on any WordPress blog. This eliminates the need to edit your template code to begin logging. Google Analyticator also includes several widgets for displaying Analytic’s data in the admin and on your blog.

17.) Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site.

19.) Sociable – After introducing Sociable Skyscraper, the ultimate advanced and feature-packed plugin for setting up a rating system on your WordPress blog. It is sort of banner that reminds your readers to spread the word. You can select and customize several features, such as test, color, and length in order to ensure your readers and their friends a great Sociable Experience.

20.) Really Simple CAPTCHA – Really Simple CAPTCHA does not work alone and is tended to work with other plugins. It is originally created for Contact Form 7; however, you can use it with your own plugin

29.) Redirection – Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 re-directions keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have. This is particularly useful if you are migrating your pages from an old website, or are changing the directory of your WordPress installation.

Designing a web site can be a challenging task but the process can be very smooth and rewarding if you have the right web design resources. So I have decided to start posting some of the tools and web design resources that I use when developing a web site.

They are also currently looking for support via Kickstarter because they are developing a new app for color palettes. The site is extremely easy to use and it will allow you to export your color choices via; HTML and CSS, Text, XML, and Gimp Palette. “I personally use this site when looking for combination of choices in different variations.”

Okay, so here is my new favorite web site. There are literally over 2 million color palette combinations made by other designers which is a great collaboration tool and gives you exposure to what other designers are doing. You can also make your own palette, and then give the palette its own name. Once it is named you then easily share it with your client by downloading an image or a specific file format. Also a great place for Web Background Patterns. Check out my post on Patterns.

Kuler

Of course you can not forget about Adobe’s color tool. It has been around quite some time and has millions of color combinations as well but the whole site is in Flash(It almost sounds like a bad word to say Flash because the way that web development is headed right now. And that is very sad because I love designing sites in Flash). So it will not work on iPad or iPhone. The controls that are available to change the RGB, CYMK and so on are over the top. So for the desktop environment it is another great choice when trying to pick the best color palette that represents your clients brand.

Well, that about sums up my color web design resources. I like to be able to quickly design a color palette for a customer so their site is original from the ground up. If you start designing the base elements of a web site with original colors, fonts, and pictures then in the end the entire site will be a one-of-a-kind web site.

Developing Web Site – Make sure that you have the following: A Plan, Development, Design, and Maintenance of a web site.

I’ve blogged a lot about web site development and I want to make sure I stress a few important items, a web site is a constant ever changing and growing marketing tool for your business, before beginning a web site or web development please consult with an expert, and most of all PLAN your web site. To help you make your plan, here is a simplified checklist for the planning, development, design and maintenance of a website ($ indicates potential additional fees that may be incurred).

PLAN YOUR WEB SITE

Make a plan for your site.

Consult with several companies and make the right decision for you and your budget.

Plan a budget for the development of your web site as well as the maintaining of your web site

Set a Launch Date – Before you officially launch your site and during the plan phase set a date to launch your site, be sure to make note of that date with the developer but be mindful if you ask for additional pages, functions, or any changes this can and will extend your launch date please decide what is most important to you and your business. Getting the site launched with the initial content or adding additional content and changes and delaying the launch of your site. This is the most common problem when developing a site. Also remember you can always continue to add to a site very quickly if you have a CMS.

VERY IMPORTANT – Once you have chosen a CMS make sure the developer you choose can not only develop in it but support it after the launch of the site. Also make sure that the code is not proprietary and you are allowed to move your site to another company once the contract is completed. This is a common issue with a lot of web developer they either do not tell you that your site has been developed in a proprietary system or that only they can maintain it because no one else in the area supports the CMS they used.

DEVELOPMENT

Gather information relative to your site before meeting with web companies. The gathering of information; such as, Pictures, Text, Keywords, Video, Social Links, Phone Numbers, and Address can give you a big head start in the development of your web site.

Website Name (Domain Name) – Make sure to choose a name that complements your company, service or product that you are introducing on the web. Tying in your primary keyword into your domain name can be extremely helpful.

Competition Researched – Make sure you see what your compettion’s web site looks like, do some research check out their sites. See what you like and don’t like, make a list of things you do and the things you don’t like.

Visit other web sites and pick out sites that you like and have function and features you like

Make a list of keywords 1 to 25 about your business, Ex: (Web Design Greenville SC, is considered one keyword or phrase)

Website Host Research, if your developer does not have a hosting solution for you. Check around the area for other companies that do not only develop but host the site as well. Having one point of contact is critical. Especially when your site goes down and your web developer has no reason why, then you are calling someone else whom may answer the phone or may not answer the phone.

Website Host Chosen and Registered $

Website Name Chosen – Make sure once you have chosen a name that when producing collateral pieces like business card, letterhead, envelopes, brochures, invoices, receipt, billboards, mailers, flyers, or any printed piece for your business that your www. is plastered all over the place.

Website Name Purchase $ Typically we use Godaddy to register all of our names and we charge exactly what Godaddy charges us.

Website Structure and Organization Established – Here is a great resource for structure of a web site – Web Style Structure

Link Exchange Researched – Check with your vendors, suppliers or anyone that you do business with and ask about putting a link to your web site on their web site and vice-a-verse.

Link Exchange Page Set Up – Make sure if you are going to be exchanging quite a few links that you setup a page to handle your policy and make it easy for other sites to grab your logo and a link to your site. The more in-bound and out-bound links you have the better your site is received as an information hub than just a site selling a product or service.

Articles/Resources Provided/Researched – Search the internet, publications, in-house material, collateral pieces and other media for articles / content that you can add o your web site which in turn will add value to your site as a resource of information and will assist with improving your search engine registration.

Articles/Resources Chosen – Link to other related articles that are relative to your service or product. Make sure to give credit to the person or company that wrote the article or content that you are linking too.

Advertising Inclusion Implemented – Decide wether or not you would like to include advertising on your site, and if so then choose rates and rate sheet that a potential customer can easily download.

Search Engine Submission Prepared – Set a goal for your search engine submission. This does not happen over night and it takes several elements to make this successful. Make sure there is a plan from your web developer or SEO specialist and that they plan to analyze the results after a certain period.

Search Engine Submission Implemented $ – Even with having a plan and a goal set, this process is not a one time process. It is a constant under-taking. You will always need to be mindful of your web site placement in the search engines because your competition is always trying to get ahead of you and will try the same tactics that you have done.

Review Search Engine Submission Results (1-4 months after public release) – Set a date and time to review your search engine placement with your web developer or SEO specialist after about 4 months, so you can find out your placement as well as improve your placement if the goal that was set was not reached.

Setup Social Accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Blog, and make sure to have someone whom can update them on a regular basis. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, this must be done on a regular basis it can be the difference between getting a sales or perspective customer. The more you update your site, blog and social accounts the better your chances of bringing someone to your site. “It is like putting hundreds and hundreds of fishing hooks in the water, the more you put in the greater your chances are a landing a big fish.”

Add Google Analytic s or Re-Invigorate – At Mojoe we use both of these tools Google is free and re-invigorate it $10.00 dollars a month. We do this so we can have cross comparison of analytical data for your web site.

DESIGN

Artwork Compiled – Laying out the colors, fonts, and spacing you like, so that your designer or branding specialist can speed your design time up greatly as well as provide you a more effective brand that you are looking for in your business or service.

Typography Research / Presented – There are some really helpful web sites available that will make it very easy to choose which fonts to use for your web site. Your Type can send a message an convey meaning just like a picture or logo. So choosing the right font style, color and spacing can be very effective in -conjunction with the rest of your site to present the correct message. Here are some useful resources for researching fonts: Google Fonts, Smashing Magazine, Inspiration Bit, and 1st Web

Pictures Research / Presented – “A picture is worth a thousand words” this statement as has more meaning on the web than any where else on the planet. Having a picture that is of quality and meaning can impart so much information about your business that it leaves the words behind. Be mindful of your photography make sure it sends the right message to your viewers when presented on your site. If you use stock photography and photography from a local photographer make sure they compliment each other. The worst thing that can happen is having two different styles of photography on a web site. It sends the wrong message to your viewers but this is a common practice because high-end quality photography cost money. So make a decision wether to use all stock photography for your web site or use all photography you have shot with your digital camera. Pick one quality stand-point for your photography and stay with it, if you are going to mix them then be sure to hire a professional photographer. Here are some helpful stock sites and professional photographers. PABPhoto.com, Patrick Cox, iStock Photo, and Big Stock Photo

Creation of a Mood Board – The creation of a mood board for your site and the over all theme of your company is not only a resource to be utilized with the development of your site but with all the collateral pieces that are created for your business. By doing this you will keep a constant brand so your company or service is always recognizable, and this is paramount to the success of your business. Note: “Not every company can design brands as well as develop web sites correctly be careful when choosing a one size fits all company. They are usually great at one aspect but are lacking in other areas.” If you would like more information on the creation of Mood Board, Check out this article at Web Designer Depot.

Logo Designed or Prepared as Digital Art – The designing of your logo should incorporate your overall theme for your company. The logo should be made available in several formats for you; such as, black and white and color. Your logo should be able to be scaled from a favicon to a billboard. Which means your logo should be done as an EPS file or what is also know as a vector file so it will scale easily and without having to be re-created.

Layout Design Research and Presented – When laying out and designing your site be mindful of how your customers will be viewing your site. Will they be viewing your site via there desktop, laptop, mobile phone, iPad, iPhone, or even their TV. If so you need to make sure that your site is an adaptive web site or a fully responsive web site($ A fully responsive site can cost a great deal of extra money). Web sites that are presented on other devices looks and acts differently make sure your web developer discusses the pros and cons of developing a site for only one device and if they are using Flash on any of the site. How limited your site will become to certain parts of your viewing audience. When we develop a design we present it in all formats that we will be developing for, so if we are doing an adaptive site we will present you with a Desktop version of your site, Laptop version of your site, Tablet version of your site, and a mobile version of your web site.

Color Scheme Chosen – Once you and your developer have choose the color scheme make sure he supplies you with a CYMK version which is a printer version of your colors so when you print collateral pieces all of your colors will match. It is best to pick out your printer color first for your collateral pieces and work from that to create the web colors you will need for your web site.

Layout/Design Chosen – Once you and your developer have made a decision on the layout and design make sure that once the site is completed and the contract finished get the creation files, font files, color scheme, and any and all other related files. The reason is because this is your web site you want to make sure you have a full and complete version of your site in-case you ever have to take these files to someone else. Also you will see how well organized your developer and his/her team his which will give you some insight to the development of your project.

HTML and CSS Coding Design – This part of the process is the structure and the layout of your site. HTML which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and CSS which stands for Cascading Style Sheets control the look and feel of your site in the browser. Make sure that your code is commented by your developer this can be essential when having multiple developers work on your site. The comments basically are a road map to the construction of your web site and will make it easy for another developer or team to come in and assist or take-over for another company or developer.

What is the Function – The function of your site is how your site interacts with potential customers and viewers. This is usually accomplished by javascript, Jquery, or flash. Now there are pros and cons to each make sure they’re explained to you and your understand the benefits and draw backs. So if you want a rotating banner of pictures at the top of your site discuss with your developer how that will be achieved and will it be visible for all of your audience. Also if you are going to have a form on the site will it be functional for everyone and whom will the form go to?

Content and Articles Added – If you are going to be adding additional content or articles to your site on a regular basis make sure they are displayed noteabley on your site so viewers can get to the information as fast as possible.

Review Web Standards – So once your site is completed review the web standards that are available. Is your site up to the standards of the target audience you are trying to reach? You can have your developer check and make sure by going to W3C

Validate Code – Has all of your HTML and CSS been validated and are there any errors and if so are the errors acceptable based on functions you are using? You can check those out at the following links: Markup Validation or CSS Validation

Check Website with Other Browsers – Test your web site in all browsers; such as, FireFox, Internet Explorer,Safari, Chrome,Opera, and Avant. Also be mindful of the version of each browser. Each browser has different versions and your site depending upon the HTML and CSS will render differently in each browser unless your developer has taken that into consideration. So be sure to ask will my site work in all browser and version of those browser. NOTE: IF you ask for your site to work in all of these and all there version you most likely will get charged additional monies for providing this service. For Example: Internet Explorer has the following version on the web IE9, IE8, IE7,and IE6 the last two are barely even used any more but some people still have them as there browser of choice. You can go to Browser Stats and see current statistics for which browser people are using for their browser you can also see other stats on this site.

Check Website with different OS (Operating Systems) – Checking your site in different browsers is very important but be sure to check your site on both Mac and PC for each of the browsers above, or make sure that your developer offers this service when developing your site.

Check Website with Various Screen Resolutions – During the layout phase of the construction of you’re site your developer should be discussing the dimension of the site is designing and if he is designing an adaptive site then this will not matter because he will have taken in the most common resolutions into consideration and this will not be a factor to check. You can see the most common screen resolutions for computer by visiting: Browser Display Statistics

Edit and Review Website Presentation – Having one final review and presentation from your developer / development company can b e vital to how your site is recieved when the site is launched, check, check, check and check again for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and how your site is presented to the viewer. Have a meeting to discuss the aspects you are completely satisfied with and be sure to let them know which ones you are not satisfied with, most developer will try and work it out. Remember the site is not only for your business but a representation of the developers work and ability. He wants to be just as proud of the site as you do and will strive to do everything possible to make this happen.

Test Website (typically 2-4 weeks) – Test, Test, Test, and test some more. Have your friends, family, and long time customers test your site before doing the official launch of your site. This will make your site error proof as much as possible. Because your friends and family will give the unbiased opinion and this will assist you and the developer with in-valuable feedback. For small web site this is not as big a priority as larger site, database driven sites or e-commerce sites.

Test Links – Check your links on all pages. Especially if your site is a large site when links to articles, blog, resources, or shopping cart. If you have a site map on your site(and you should) then check all of the links on there as well.

Frequently Update – Updating your social feeds is one thing but not updating your actual web site can hurt your search listing. Be sure to set a schedule for both your social feeds and your web site. If you do not want to be responsible for this, then hire the development company to take care of it and plan a schedule with them.

Check for Errors – Always check for errors, you or the development company you contract with should check for errors on a regular basis.

Add Link Exchanges – Having a link exchange policy in place on your site can be very helpful for driving traffic to your site and increasing your over all page rank.

Check for Bad Links – If you link to other web sites for articles, resources, or other forms of information be sure to check those links on a schedule as well because over time links will get broken and if no one fixes them on your site then your site looks like it is not begin managed properly and this will send the wrong message to your audience.

Keyword Review and Update – After about 4 to 6 months review your keywords that you have used in your text and in your meta-tags. Check and see if these are working for you and your web site if they are not, then speak with your SEO specialist or your developer. You can also analyze you’re site at Web Site Grader

Check Link Popularity – If you are being linked to or are linking to other companies check their page rank to see how popular their site may be. The higher the page rank the potential for more some of that traffic to visit your web site. You can check your page rank at Google Page Rank

Review New Technology – Be on the look out for new and developing technology. Make sure that the developer that you engage is aware of these technologies and how they can better assist you in the development and design of your web site. There are currently emerging technologies like HTML5 and CSS 3 which make the web experience even better and less dependent on images and other older web technologies.

Review Web Standards – If you add additional content to your site or make changes to your site make sure your site is still meeting the web standards.

Check Site Statistics – Be mindful of your marketing strategies and how its affects the statistics on your site. Having your statistics sent to you weekly will help you keep an eye on how your site is progressing and if your marketing campaign as made an impact on your site visitors.

Add New Content – I can not say this enough, please add more content to your site on a regular basis a stagnate web site will not preform give you the desired results for new business. ” A web site is a constantly ever-changing and evolving form of communication fro your business.

Check Links – Keep checking your links every time your site is updated.

Validate Code – Make Sure to keep validating your code on a regular basis, make sure it is added to the routine or schedule.

Re-Submit Site to Search Engines – If you hire a company to do your Search Engine Registration and Optimization for your web site then ask them what is there schedule of submission. How often will they submit your site to the search engines and for how long. Will they generate you a report of the submission which will show you whom they are submitting to and if your submission was received or not.

Check Web Page Descriptions – Make sure that your web page descriptions are unique and correlate to the page that they’re on and that the description is not generic.

Check Web Page Titles – Your page title should also correlate to the page that the viewer is on and should be unique to that page. Do not use your companies name in the front of the title. Use a unique identifier for that page then add your company name into the title as well.

Review Meta Tag Standards and Update – If you are not at the top of the search engines for a particular keyword or key phrase then see what is missing from your site. You may also need to create new content that re-use that keyword or key phrase more frequently.

Review Top Searches from Search Engines (potential new content ideas) – Check your search terms and see what is being pulled up by your keywords and key phrases see if you are listed and if not see what your competition is doing so you can better your site and its performance in the search engine.

Just like maintenance, search engine registration and optimization is an ongoing ever-expanding and changing service and will require additional money and time. Search Engine Optimization and Registration is a whole another separate service just like branding, logo creation and developing a web site. So when having a company provide SEO Services be sure of the cost and the amount of time involved with the project.

I will be writing some more in-depth blog post that will deal with Planning, Development, Design and Maintenance so please be sure to check back often and feel free to contact me at 864-859-9848 or you can email me at dwerne@mojoe.net

There are quite a few new web site’s that are springing up to fund people’s projects. Whether you are an artist, writer, designer, journalist, programmer or inventor; these sites will fund your idea by having backers pledge so much money to your cause and the sky is the limit on the amount of money that you need or would like to have for your project. Here are some links to some of the sites that provide this service:

http://www.kickstarter.com

http://www.indiegogo.com/

http://peerbackers.com

There are several other sites as well and I have provided a link to a page that gives you all of them and you can research each of them for which ones you like the best. http://crowdfunding.pbworks.com/w/page/10402176/Crowdfunding

I personally like kickstarter.com and peerbackers.com they seem to fund all types of project endeavors. Check them out and get funded.

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The Good

Network management and packet discrimination must be reasonable

The FCC is trying to prevent companies from being able to pay more to have an Internet service provider (ISP) treat its data better than everyone else’s. We’re not talking about charging you and me for a faster connection (which is fine), we’re talking about giving different types of data prioritization across the network, which would make things suck for everyone who didn’t pay for that service. This is now a no-no.

By allowing ‘reasonable’ packet discrimination, the FCC’s intent is to allow an ISP to make sure that its networks are running smoothly for everyone. This sounds great, and it would be, if ISPs weren’t apparently all greedy bastards. But more on that later.

Wireless ISPs (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) play by different rules, but the FCC does say that a provider won’t be allowed to block applications that directly compete with its own services. An ISP couldn’t block Skype, for example, if it competed with the company’s voice service, and it couldn’t block Google Maps to force you to use its own map app.

ISPs will be required to be transparent

If your ISP does need to do some of this “reasonable” packet discrimination for network management purposes, it’s required to tell you exactly what it’s doing and how it’s doing it. The ISP is also required to tell you (before you pay anything) which sites might be blocked, and what speeds users are getting. Realistic speeds, not all this “up to” business we’re used to.

The Bad

Blocking of lawful content is banned

Your ISP can’t stop you from watching porn, as long as it’s lawful porn. But, your ISP can stop you from accessing sites that it can argue are questionably legal, which might include BitTorrent trackers (even if they track lawful content) and sites such as WikiLeaks.

This is bad not because we’re endorsing illegal sites, ’cause we’re not. It’s bad because it says that it’s okay to censor things, and censorship, even a little bit, is evil.

The Really, Really Ugly

Network management and packet discrimination is allowed

What the FCC thinks is reasonable and what your ISP thinks is reasonable when it comes to packet discrimination for network management are two entirely different things. The worst case scenario is that ISPs ultimately get to decide what’s reasonable and what’s not, which would be a disaster. Why? Well, an ISP might be able to argue that it’s reasonable for it to restrict the delivery of streaming video, since it takes up so much bandwidth, while trying to sell you cable TV at the same time. It’s clearly a conflict of interest, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Same with content blocking: by saying that sometimes it’s okay to discriminate against some kinds of data, it’s leaving the door wide open for abuse of the system.

The other ugly thing about allowing data discrimination is that the FCC isn’t applying most of these already questionably strict rules to wireless data, because they say that wireless has less bandwidth so it’s more reasonable for providers to prioritize content. This is pretty short sighted, considering that within the next decade at the outside, we’re all going to be relying on wireless connectivity pretty much all the time. It’s a terrible precedent to set.

In fact, the rules for regulating wireless connections is still pretty ill-defined at the moment, and it’s one area that could cause more net neutrality headaches in the years to come.

What’s Next

Two things are probably going to happen next.

First, Republicans (who were responsible for the two ‘nay’ votes on the five member FCC panel) are going to try to undo everything that the FCC is working toward because they say additional regulation goes against the spirit of the free market or something, which is bullshit. Your ISP wants to do what’s best for itself, not what’s best for you. Don’t fool yourself: it’s not the same thing.

Second, ISPs are probably going to take the FCC to court on what exactly constitutes “reasonable discrimination,” among other things. The companies may argue that the first amendment grants the right to deliver information through a company’s network however it wants. The scary thing is that ISPs such as Comcast don’t seem particularly concerned about these new regulations, suggesting that it’s confident that it can win some of the more important legal challenges. And if Comcast and others do win, it could set a legal precedent that could leave the FCC worse off than when all this started.

The FCC is releasing additional details about its ruling in stages, so it may be a little while before it’s entirely clear how everything is going to work. The initial perception, for instance, was that paid prioritization was going to be allowed, until the FCC followed up later to clarify (as Ars Technica points out) that it is in fact going to try to stop it from happening. Expect more clarifications like this in the near future.

The Nutshell

The FCC has taken a well-intentioned first step that offers some small net neutrality benefits, but the deal is clearly a compromise with corporate interests and may not ultimately do much to keep the Internet free and open.

The Federal Communications Commission laid down some ground rules governing its vision for net neutrality this week. Net neutrality matters because it’s what keeps the Internet open and accessible to everyone, so this ruling is pretty important. How’d the FCC do? Not great, but we’ll break it down for you.

In designing a site I always ask for as many photos as I can from a client. The more images you have for a site the more visually appealing the site can become; but if a client does not have any images then we go to a photographer to take pictures for the customer or more commonly we go to a stock photography site. The old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words” is very true when it comes to web design.

When developing a piece of marketing whether it is a brochure, billboard, flyer, or even a web site. Society reads on an 8th grade level, which lets us know how visually-based our society has become. So when designing a web site the more pictures you can use the more you’ll be able to draw in your visitors.

When developing a web site; I always start out with a two hour meeting where we go through a creative strategy process where we ask the client a great deal of probing questions; such as, what colors do you like, what type of feel are you going for on your website, are you selling a product, and so on. (More to come on Creative Strategy in my next article) Once I have gathered this information I then go on and construct a light-box of images whether the images are from the client, a photographer, stock photography web site or a combination of the aforementioned sources.

So when you begin developing a web site for a client it is very helpful to start out by presenting them with a light-box of images. This is a great way to spawn ideas for the development of the site as well as get additional direction from the client. This allows you to develop a visual story for the client and will help visually layout the site with the images you have chosen. For you newbie’s out there I am sure you are wondering by now what is a light-box? Well, here is the official definition: “A folder used on stock photography site to allow a user to organize digital photos.”

When picking photos for a light-box there are several great stock photography sites out there; such as, www.istockphoto.com, www.bigstockphoto.com, www.shutterstock.com, www.rubberball.com, www.jupiterimages.com. I personally use www.istockphoto.com because the image quality is superior and the price is very reasonable when purchasing photos. Istockphoto.com also has a built in light-box which you can create for a specific client and then send the client a link to that light-box so they can review the images that you have chosen.

Here is an example of one of the light-boxes that I created for a client. Click Here

When purchasing photos make sure to keep a copy of all photos not only for the client that you have purchased them for but also to keep a copy for yourself. I have done this for the last 10 years and I have built up quite a collection of photos for my own library of images. I use these photos as my go too photos for clients before I purchase any additional.

Once the client has chosen the images that he/she wishes to use for construction of their web site I begin designing a Mood Board for their website. “What is a Mood Board you ask?” Well here is a link to the article that gave me the insight on Mood Boards.

Best of Luck in designing and developing your own web sites, please feel free to email me at dwerne@mojoe.net for any questions or comments in regard to this article.

We will be posting more information on the blog on, HOW TO DO WEB DESIGN. We will be linking to local companies we like in our area which is Greenville South Carolina, and Alanta Georgia.

One topic that we have been asked to cover is CMS which stands for Content Mangement Systems. There are a number of CMS’s out there and they all range from the very good to the not so very good. We will go in depth in our next post and highlight some CMS’s that we like and that we use. I will also let you know which ones we passed on becuase they where either complicated or too costly.